The Medha Journal

Dear Rajendra and Partha,

People like Flanagan are searching for meaning within a strictly materialistic model. The claim is that Buddhism minus the hocus pocus will provide the meaning of life. My objection to this line of thinking is that life can not have any meaning within a strict materialistic paradigm. What meaning can be found in the life of a child who dies young? For that matter, what meaning can be found in the lives of most persons? It seems to me that without a goal like moksha, there can be no meaning in life. I doubt very much if a stripped down Buddhism can help.

Regards

Pradip
Read More...

I have read the Weinberg article three times after Pradip posted the link here.
Every reading makes me sadder.
The article happens to be a beautiful summary of developments in the past century in understanding primary particles, both through advances in particle physics and those in exploration of space leading to better ways of looking at what is happening out there where there is more action.
Subsequent readings expose the total dependence of the scientific community in the developed west for funding for relevant further research on political expediencies.
Weinberg points out very clearly to the need for larger and more endowed equipment needing more and more funds for effecting marginal breakthroughs and the uncertainties in the ability of scientists to have their way and say.

December 2011 probably gave us evidence of the appearance of the Higgs boson. Scientists quickly referred to some earlier evidence which may also have indicated the same.

The aside about the naming of the special boson is interesting. It is hoped scientists will not fight about the naming rights the way other categories of us are capable of doing.
Read More...

There is a fashion nowadays in the West to naturalize Buddhism.

This book,

The Bodhisattva's Brain: Buddhism Naturalized

Owen Flanagan (Author),

is an example of such an attempt to naturalize Buddhism. The book review in the amazon.com site says the following:
************************************************************************
If we are material beings living in a material world--and all the scientific evidence suggests that we are--then we must find existential meaning, if there is such a thing, in this physical world. We must cast our lot with the natural rather than the supernatural. Many Westerners with spiritual (but not religious) inclinations are attracted to Buddhism--almost as a kind of moral-mental hygiene. But, as Owen Flanagan points out in The Bodhisattva's Brain, Buddhism is hardly naturalistic. Atheistic when it comes to a creator god, Buddhism is otherwise opulently polytheistic, with spirits, protector deities, ghosts, and evil spirits. Its beliefs include karma, rebirth, nirvana, and nonphysical states of mind. What is a nonreligious, materially grounded spiritual seeker to do? In The Bodhisattva's Brain, Flanagan argues that it is possible to subtract the "hocus pocus" from Buddhism and discover a rich, empirically responsible philosophy that could point us to one path of human flourishing. "Buddhism naturalized," as Flanagan constructs it, contains a metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics; it is a fully naturalistic and comprehensive philosophy, compatible with the rest of knowledge. Some claim that neuroscience is in the process of validating Buddhism empirically, but Flanagan's naturalized Buddhism does not reduce itself to a brain scan showing happiness patterns. Buddhism naturalized offers instead a tool for achieving happiness and human flourishing--a way of conceiving of the human predicament, of thinking about meaning for finite material beings living in a material world.

**************************************************************************

What do you think of such attempts? Will Buddhism make sense after subtracting the 'hocus pocus' (Karma, nirvana etc)?
Read More...

Nothing is the absence of everything. So it can not be something.

There is a concept of nothing in Quantum Mechanics, the vacuum or void state. The void state is, however, not nothing in the sense described in the first sentence.
Read More...